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lomonaaerenTitle: Wrongs and Rights
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: R
Pairing: Harry/Theo, references to James/Lily
Content Notes: AU in fifth year, blood magic, references to violence, blood-drinking, bloodplay, angst
Wordcount: 3000
Summary: AU, sequel to ‘Blood of My Blood.” In the wake of the abortive battle at the Department of Mysteries and the disembodiment of Voldemort, Sirius, Remus, Harry, Theo, and Albus reflect on what happened.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of the Stormy Season” fics, one-shots being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. This is the sequel to my fic “Blood of My Blood” from this summer and hence the second part of my series “A Blood Mage and His Phoenix.” It won’t make any sense without the prequel, so read that first.
Wrongs and Rights
“If Mr. Nott will leave…”
“No.”
Harry and Nott both spoke at the same time.
Sirius watched them warily from the corner of Albus’s office, where Albus had escorted them all after leaving the captured Death Eaters (except for Wormtail) for the Ministry to find. Sirius suspected that meant they would be out again soon enough. But Albus had spoken the truth when he said they didn’t have the resources to hold them, or any means to keep them from escaping again.
Harry and Nott stood close together. Nott had leaned back a little so that his shoulder was touching Harry’s, which wasn’t obvious unless you were looking for it. Sirius had looked for it.
He wanted to shake his head. As it was, he was exerting all his self-control just to sit still instead of leaping up, grabbing Harry, and hauling him back through the Floo to Grimmauld Place.
That wouldn’t do any good, either. He didn’t have the resources to hold Harry there, and from what he had seen, Harry would either disappear straight back to Nott the moment Sirius’s back was turned, or Nott would find some way to him.
They were bound, connected, knotted at the souls.
Sirius had seen it before, with him and James, with James and Lily, with Molly and Arthur. It wasn’t even marriage, exactly, because Sirius and James had never been married. It was simply an obstinate refusal to move away from the other person, a promise to come for them through fire and iron.
When Harry told me he had a boyfriend, I never imagined it would turn into anything like this. He’s too young for it.
But then again, Harry’s life hadn’t been an ordinary kid’s from the moment Lily and James had died. Maybe Sirius shouldn’t have been so surprised that he had found someone he was bound to as young as fifth year.
Albus leaned forwards over the desk and flattened his hands on it. “Mr. Nott cannot know what I am about to tell you, Harry.”
“Theo can hear anything that pertains to me.”
Nott moved a step closer to Harry, eyes fixed on Albus and glittering with defiance. His hip aligned with Harry’s, and his hand rested openly on his shoulder now. Albus stared unhappily at the pair of them.
“I know that there’s a prophecy about Harry,” Nott said. “Probably. It was the thing that the Dark Lord intended to have lure Harry to the Department of Mysteries in the first place.” He bowed his head so that his chin rested just above Harry’s shoulder. “And I know that Harry could probably only stand up to the Dark Lord as a baby because he’s a Phoenix.”
Fawkes crooned from his perch. Harry shot him a narrow smile. The bird ruffled his feathers and looked enthusiastic.
“Harry is not a phoenix Animagus,” said Albus, with a little frown in his voice.
Sirius agreed fervently, if only because that would have been brilliant and Harry should have told him all about it, if that was the case.
“No,” Nott agreed. “A Phoenix is the complement to a blood mage. Harry can do things like call the blood from inside the Dark Lord’s body and back to himself, and cause blood to burst out of bodies, the way he did to Lestrange.” He smiled. “He can do many other things in concert with me, and I suspect there’s no way that the Dark Lord has seen anything like it. He doesn’t have the gift.”
For some reason, Albus swallowed. Maybe it was only the mention of blood magic, Sirius thought. That was a seriously Dark gift if there ever was one.
“There are certain things I will only reveal if Harry and I speak alone,” Albus tried.
Nott shrugged, but Harry was the one who said, “All right, sir. Then I suppose we’ll see you when you change your mind.” And they turned and started to walk out of the office.
“Stop!” Albus’s voice thundered in the air, and the door to his office shuddered and locked itself.
Both Nott and Harry turned their heads to look at him. Nott’s eyes had gone hard, all trace of a smile vanishing from his face. But Harry smiled, and leaned his shoulder a little harder against Nott’s, and the look in his eyes made Sirius swallow and wish that he could back away.
“Right now,” Harry said conversationally, “I know that your blood is running through your veins calmly and normally, Headmaster. I can change that. Theo can change that. You have no means to keep us prisoner.”
Sirius resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands and giggle with shrill panic. Harry was declaring that he was Albus’s equal, and expected to be dealt with like an equal. He and Nott both.
Albus closed his eyes and breathed like he was trying to keep himself comfortable in icy air. He finally looked at Harry and Nott again and said, “Sit.”
Harry had a faint smile on his face as he led Nott back towards the chairs in front of Albus’s desk. They sat down in separate ones, but moved them closer together, and their hands dropped to rest in between them. Sirius wasn’t sitting at the right angle to see, but he was pretty sure their fingers were twined together.
Like Lily and James. But even Lily and James had only got together in seventh year. Sirius couldn’t remember two people who had bonded like this at such a young age.
Then again, when has anything about Harry’s life ever been normal?
“We’re ready to discuss things, Headmaster,” said Harry.
*
Albus spoke slowly as he looked at Harry and Nott, this Death Eater’s son he had inexplicably befriended.
More than that. Albus could see magic of the kind that people loved and understood down to their bones if he let his eyes unfocus and his mind drift a little. He could see the black dog in Sirius hovering close under his skin, and had been able to since Sirius first achieved the transformation in his fifth year. Minerva was always shadowed by a cat in Albus’s sight, Severus by a bubbling cauldron, and Hermione Granger by a chaotic mix of spells, since she seemed to love many of them equally.
Harry had alternated during his time here, from a wand casting the Disarming Charm to a broom. But now—
Now there was a phoenix rising beneath his skin. But not a normal one. Albus did not know what to make of this blood-splattered bird, with feathers so golden that they shone like metal, and the red running down over those feathers and dripping from the corner of its eyes and beak.
He had never looked at Nott in such detail before, and therefore did not know if the bloody knives that seemed to bristle in his hands were new or not. But he did know that they marked Nott as a blood mage, and practitioner of the magic on such a deep level that he would reach for those spells before he reached for his wand.
And that made Albus afraid. Such magic had been banned for a reason. Blood mages—and their Phoenixes, it seemed—would start seeing everything in terms of sacrifice, wounds, and killing. They would kill when they did not need to. They would tear apart their opponents with gleeful screams.
How had Harry become involved with one of them?
The answer spoke like a cold wind blowing through Albus’s soul. Because you were not there for him. Because you turned your back on him thinking that was the way to keep your secrets safe.
And the end of it was that he was being forced to tell the secret of the prophecy that he had guarded so long, not only to the object of that prophecy but to a Death Eater’s son.
Albus watched the way Nott’s eyes grew wide and vowed silently to himself that he would not leave Harry so unprotected again. He would make sure that he learned everything Harry did, so that he could defend the boy.
So that he could ensure no one died who did not need to.
*
“So you caught the rat and proved your godfather innocent.”
Harry laughed as Theo shoved him up against the wall of a classroom not far from Dumbledore’s office. Technically it was on the way to Gryffindor Tower, where Harry had implied he would be going to speak to Ron and Hermione. “Technically” could cover a lot of sins. “Yeah.”
“He didn’t look grateful,” Theo said, and turned his head to the side, teeth sinking into the skin above Harry’s collarbone.
Harry gasped sharply and reached out, clawing at the wall with his fingers. Theo bit again, and Harry felt blood welling to the surface. He went limp against Theo, who made an amused sound and supported him with an easy hand.
“I think—I think it hasn’t really sunk in for Sirius yet that he’s free because we caught Pettigrew—oh, God.”
“You’re Muggle when you’re aroused, sometimes.”
Harry tossed his head back and closed his eyes. Theo was sinking with him, and although he was sucking on Harry’s blood, it was more than that that was making Harry’s heart beat and driving the blood through his veins. He was suddenly riding the high of the battle as if they were still at the Ministry in the room of prophecy orbs.
He’d destroyed Voldemort’s body. He’d done something that would set back the bastard’s plans—
And now Theo was whispering to him as he cast Cushioning Charms, and Harry gave in to his half-incoherent pleas.
He reached out to Theo’s blood and strummed it in his veins as if he was playing a harp, and Theo was hard and flushed enough that he looked as if he was in pain by the time that he crouched down to straddle Harry.
Harry recklessly touched the blood in his own tissues around his arse, something he’d never done before, and forcibly relaxed himself.
“Harry?”
Theo was wide-eyed, reaching towards him with a trembling hand. Harry rolled his head to the side and gave Theo a sweet smile. “I’m ready for you to take me now.”
“I still think we should cast some kind of lubrication charm…”
“I don’t want to.”
Maybe the sharp edge in his voice convinced Theo. Maybe it was just the desire that would be overwhelming Theo as Harry manipulated his heart and his erection and his blood flow, and he nodded and slid between Harry’s legs.
Harry lifted his knees, and felt Theo grasp them and draw them over his shoulders. He wasn’t using magic to help this time, just muscles. It would probably hurt like hell tomorrow, for both of them, given that they’d already fought a battle today.
It didn’t matter.
Theo entered him in one desperate thrust, and Harry flung his head back and cried out in shock and pain and delight.
*
Harry was a wonder.
Theo stared at his face as he thrust wildly into Harry, sloppy and uncoordinated and painful. Harry was flushed the way he always when they worked closely with blood magic, half-shouting and clenching at the air with empty hands, laughing wildly in the pauses between his cries.
They had defeated the Dark Lord tonight. At least temporarily. They had won Harry’s godfather a trial and confused the mighty Albus Dumbledore.
They had proven that blood magic could be used on the field of battle, and survived.
Theo thrust until he felt his eyes roll back in his head and an embarrassing stream of heat pulled from him. He never came this fast when he was with Harry, not most of the time. But this evening was hardly a usual time for the two of them.
He slumped down next to Harry and saw that Harry’s erection was still glistening and hard. He reached out, aware of Harry’s breathless anticipation and wide eyes, and flicked a finger against the tip.
Harry shuddered and came, giving a low moan of pain and pleasure mingled at the end. Then he rolled towards Theo and yawned.
“The Cushioning Charm will give out soon,” Theo whispered. His voice was already thick with oncoming sleep, but he knew he should do something about that. “We don’t want to sleep on a stone floor.”
“Why not?”
“We’ll wake up with aches and pains tomorrow.”
“So we take a potion.”
Harry’s eyes were fluttering determinedly shut, and Theo found that he couldn’t refuse. He didn’t want to be parted from Harry tonight. He didn’t even want to withdraw from Harry tonight. He curled tighter and tighter, closer and closer, and Harry leaned his head on Theo’s chest, and Theo gathered him close, and they went to sleep like that.
*
“We’re very worried about you.”
Remus tried to keep his voice kind as he sat down across from Harry in the library in Grimmauld Place. Harry glanced up from a book he was reading, smiling but looking a little impatient.
Remus tried to get a good look at the cover of the book, but it had been obscured. He held in a sigh. He was almost sure that was a book on blood magic, and he wanted to tell Harry to stop reading it, but he already knew what would happen. Harry would protest with faux innocence that it wasn’t any such thing, and offer to show it to Remus, who would have to admit that the words shifting and slithering across the page were innocuous.
Remus knew that because it had already happened three times this summer.
“Why are you worried about me, Remus?”
Something relaxed in Remus’s belly. So far, Harry had avoided every discussion that Sirius had tried to have with him with a joke. Sirius had asked Remus to talk to Harry that morning in pure desperation.
Padfoot wants to do it, but he doesn’t think he knows this version of Harry well enough.
“Because you’re—you’re walking a dangerous path,” Remus said. “Blood magic isn’t the darkest Art, but it’s Dark enough. You could lose control of it. You could kill someone without meaning to.”
“I’m a Phoenix. Mastering blood magic is what I was meant to do.”
Remus clenched his teeth. That term, Phoenix, was one Harry had spoken before. Remus and Sirius had done their best to find it in books in Grimmauld Place’s library, but it was hard since the books they found only mentioned the bird. There were others, Darker tomes, that might have told them, but Sirius flatly refused to touch them, and Remus didn’t want to, either. He struggled with corruption enough as it was, given his werewolf curse.
But Harry was smiling at him in the way that said he wouldn’t explain anything. It was the way he had smiled when Albus had told him that he would have to return to his Muggle relatives’ for the summer.
“If you try to make me do that,” he’d said, “I’ll just go and stay with Theo’s father.”
Albus had tried to argue all the advantages of having Harry in the Muggle world, in vain. Harry said that he wanted to stay in the magical world instead of going into the Muggle world for a bit of a holiday, that he wanted to see Sirius’s trial, and that the blood protections around the house were a lot more useless than Albus had ever told him.
Albus had then said something about Harry’s family loving him. Harry had laughed, and Nott’s eyes had glittered coldly. They’d been standing next to each other, as they always were, in Albus’s office.
‘They don’t love me.”
“But the protections—”
“Haven’t held at all,” said Nott, and tilted his head to look at Albus. “I went and looked at them. Did you consult with a single blood mage before you tried to put them on the house? They could have told you that that kind of thing wouldn’t work on a Muggle dwelling.”
“Protections woven of blood and love—”
“There was no love. And you can’t combine an emotion with magic in the way that you think you did.”
In the end, Albus had had to back down, although of course he did it with ill grace. Remus found it hard to blame him. The boys had been infuriating.
But with the threat of losing them to Nott Manor in place, Albus had backed down, and now Nott meandered into the library and sat down next to Harry, giving Remus an indifferent look. Remus glanced away. In one respect, he would have been comforted if Nott had hated him because he was a werewolf. That would have indicated that Nott was paying attention to someone besides Harry.
Harry looked up at Nott, though, and his eyes shone with a spark that no one else had been able to draw to the surface. When Ron and Hermione had tried, inviting Harry to play Quidditch or chess or study with them alone, Harry had just smiled and shaken his head and walked away.
There was a part of him that only Nott would ever see or touch.
Remus sighed. He had been trying to avoid that realization, but it had just been waiting for him to have it. And now he would have to go tell Sirius and Albus that he had tried his best, but there was nothing he could do.
And perhaps it was for the best, in some ways. He stood up and walked to the library door, and looked back over his shoulder.
Harry and Nott were curled up against each other on the couch, heads resting on each other’s shoulders. It was more than obvious that they hadn’t noticed him go.
Remus closed his eyes. They were too young for it, Sirius had said. They were too dangerous for it, Albus had said.
But seeing them like this, Remus wouldn’t have the heart to try to take Nott from Harry, or vice versa. Unhealthy or not, dangerous or not, they were part of each other.
Everyone would just have to accept that.
The End.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Rating: R
Pairing: Harry/Theo, references to James/Lily
Content Notes: AU in fifth year, blood magic, references to violence, blood-drinking, bloodplay, angst
Wordcount: 3000
Summary: AU, sequel to ‘Blood of My Blood.” In the wake of the abortive battle at the Department of Mysteries and the disembodiment of Voldemort, Sirius, Remus, Harry, Theo, and Albus reflect on what happened.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “Songs of the Stormy Season” fics, one-shots being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. This is the sequel to my fic “Blood of My Blood” from this summer and hence the second part of my series “A Blood Mage and His Phoenix.” It won’t make any sense without the prequel, so read that first.
Wrongs and Rights
“If Mr. Nott will leave…”
“No.”
Harry and Nott both spoke at the same time.
Sirius watched them warily from the corner of Albus’s office, where Albus had escorted them all after leaving the captured Death Eaters (except for Wormtail) for the Ministry to find. Sirius suspected that meant they would be out again soon enough. But Albus had spoken the truth when he said they didn’t have the resources to hold them, or any means to keep them from escaping again.
Harry and Nott stood close together. Nott had leaned back a little so that his shoulder was touching Harry’s, which wasn’t obvious unless you were looking for it. Sirius had looked for it.
He wanted to shake his head. As it was, he was exerting all his self-control just to sit still instead of leaping up, grabbing Harry, and hauling him back through the Floo to Grimmauld Place.
That wouldn’t do any good, either. He didn’t have the resources to hold Harry there, and from what he had seen, Harry would either disappear straight back to Nott the moment Sirius’s back was turned, or Nott would find some way to him.
They were bound, connected, knotted at the souls.
Sirius had seen it before, with him and James, with James and Lily, with Molly and Arthur. It wasn’t even marriage, exactly, because Sirius and James had never been married. It was simply an obstinate refusal to move away from the other person, a promise to come for them through fire and iron.
When Harry told me he had a boyfriend, I never imagined it would turn into anything like this. He’s too young for it.
But then again, Harry’s life hadn’t been an ordinary kid’s from the moment Lily and James had died. Maybe Sirius shouldn’t have been so surprised that he had found someone he was bound to as young as fifth year.
Albus leaned forwards over the desk and flattened his hands on it. “Mr. Nott cannot know what I am about to tell you, Harry.”
“Theo can hear anything that pertains to me.”
Nott moved a step closer to Harry, eyes fixed on Albus and glittering with defiance. His hip aligned with Harry’s, and his hand rested openly on his shoulder now. Albus stared unhappily at the pair of them.
“I know that there’s a prophecy about Harry,” Nott said. “Probably. It was the thing that the Dark Lord intended to have lure Harry to the Department of Mysteries in the first place.” He bowed his head so that his chin rested just above Harry’s shoulder. “And I know that Harry could probably only stand up to the Dark Lord as a baby because he’s a Phoenix.”
Fawkes crooned from his perch. Harry shot him a narrow smile. The bird ruffled his feathers and looked enthusiastic.
“Harry is not a phoenix Animagus,” said Albus, with a little frown in his voice.
Sirius agreed fervently, if only because that would have been brilliant and Harry should have told him all about it, if that was the case.
“No,” Nott agreed. “A Phoenix is the complement to a blood mage. Harry can do things like call the blood from inside the Dark Lord’s body and back to himself, and cause blood to burst out of bodies, the way he did to Lestrange.” He smiled. “He can do many other things in concert with me, and I suspect there’s no way that the Dark Lord has seen anything like it. He doesn’t have the gift.”
For some reason, Albus swallowed. Maybe it was only the mention of blood magic, Sirius thought. That was a seriously Dark gift if there ever was one.
“There are certain things I will only reveal if Harry and I speak alone,” Albus tried.
Nott shrugged, but Harry was the one who said, “All right, sir. Then I suppose we’ll see you when you change your mind.” And they turned and started to walk out of the office.
“Stop!” Albus’s voice thundered in the air, and the door to his office shuddered and locked itself.
Both Nott and Harry turned their heads to look at him. Nott’s eyes had gone hard, all trace of a smile vanishing from his face. But Harry smiled, and leaned his shoulder a little harder against Nott’s, and the look in his eyes made Sirius swallow and wish that he could back away.
“Right now,” Harry said conversationally, “I know that your blood is running through your veins calmly and normally, Headmaster. I can change that. Theo can change that. You have no means to keep us prisoner.”
Sirius resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands and giggle with shrill panic. Harry was declaring that he was Albus’s equal, and expected to be dealt with like an equal. He and Nott both.
Albus closed his eyes and breathed like he was trying to keep himself comfortable in icy air. He finally looked at Harry and Nott again and said, “Sit.”
Harry had a faint smile on his face as he led Nott back towards the chairs in front of Albus’s desk. They sat down in separate ones, but moved them closer together, and their hands dropped to rest in between them. Sirius wasn’t sitting at the right angle to see, but he was pretty sure their fingers were twined together.
Like Lily and James. But even Lily and James had only got together in seventh year. Sirius couldn’t remember two people who had bonded like this at such a young age.
Then again, when has anything about Harry’s life ever been normal?
“We’re ready to discuss things, Headmaster,” said Harry.
*
Albus spoke slowly as he looked at Harry and Nott, this Death Eater’s son he had inexplicably befriended.
More than that. Albus could see magic of the kind that people loved and understood down to their bones if he let his eyes unfocus and his mind drift a little. He could see the black dog in Sirius hovering close under his skin, and had been able to since Sirius first achieved the transformation in his fifth year. Minerva was always shadowed by a cat in Albus’s sight, Severus by a bubbling cauldron, and Hermione Granger by a chaotic mix of spells, since she seemed to love many of them equally.
Harry had alternated during his time here, from a wand casting the Disarming Charm to a broom. But now—
Now there was a phoenix rising beneath his skin. But not a normal one. Albus did not know what to make of this blood-splattered bird, with feathers so golden that they shone like metal, and the red running down over those feathers and dripping from the corner of its eyes and beak.
He had never looked at Nott in such detail before, and therefore did not know if the bloody knives that seemed to bristle in his hands were new or not. But he did know that they marked Nott as a blood mage, and practitioner of the magic on such a deep level that he would reach for those spells before he reached for his wand.
And that made Albus afraid. Such magic had been banned for a reason. Blood mages—and their Phoenixes, it seemed—would start seeing everything in terms of sacrifice, wounds, and killing. They would kill when they did not need to. They would tear apart their opponents with gleeful screams.
How had Harry become involved with one of them?
The answer spoke like a cold wind blowing through Albus’s soul. Because you were not there for him. Because you turned your back on him thinking that was the way to keep your secrets safe.
And the end of it was that he was being forced to tell the secret of the prophecy that he had guarded so long, not only to the object of that prophecy but to a Death Eater’s son.
Albus watched the way Nott’s eyes grew wide and vowed silently to himself that he would not leave Harry so unprotected again. He would make sure that he learned everything Harry did, so that he could defend the boy.
So that he could ensure no one died who did not need to.
*
“So you caught the rat and proved your godfather innocent.”
Harry laughed as Theo shoved him up against the wall of a classroom not far from Dumbledore’s office. Technically it was on the way to Gryffindor Tower, where Harry had implied he would be going to speak to Ron and Hermione. “Technically” could cover a lot of sins. “Yeah.”
“He didn’t look grateful,” Theo said, and turned his head to the side, teeth sinking into the skin above Harry’s collarbone.
Harry gasped sharply and reached out, clawing at the wall with his fingers. Theo bit again, and Harry felt blood welling to the surface. He went limp against Theo, who made an amused sound and supported him with an easy hand.
“I think—I think it hasn’t really sunk in for Sirius yet that he’s free because we caught Pettigrew—oh, God.”
“You’re Muggle when you’re aroused, sometimes.”
Harry tossed his head back and closed his eyes. Theo was sinking with him, and although he was sucking on Harry’s blood, it was more than that that was making Harry’s heart beat and driving the blood through his veins. He was suddenly riding the high of the battle as if they were still at the Ministry in the room of prophecy orbs.
He’d destroyed Voldemort’s body. He’d done something that would set back the bastard’s plans—
And now Theo was whispering to him as he cast Cushioning Charms, and Harry gave in to his half-incoherent pleas.
He reached out to Theo’s blood and strummed it in his veins as if he was playing a harp, and Theo was hard and flushed enough that he looked as if he was in pain by the time that he crouched down to straddle Harry.
Harry recklessly touched the blood in his own tissues around his arse, something he’d never done before, and forcibly relaxed himself.
“Harry?”
Theo was wide-eyed, reaching towards him with a trembling hand. Harry rolled his head to the side and gave Theo a sweet smile. “I’m ready for you to take me now.”
“I still think we should cast some kind of lubrication charm…”
“I don’t want to.”
Maybe the sharp edge in his voice convinced Theo. Maybe it was just the desire that would be overwhelming Theo as Harry manipulated his heart and his erection and his blood flow, and he nodded and slid between Harry’s legs.
Harry lifted his knees, and felt Theo grasp them and draw them over his shoulders. He wasn’t using magic to help this time, just muscles. It would probably hurt like hell tomorrow, for both of them, given that they’d already fought a battle today.
It didn’t matter.
Theo entered him in one desperate thrust, and Harry flung his head back and cried out in shock and pain and delight.
*
Harry was a wonder.
Theo stared at his face as he thrust wildly into Harry, sloppy and uncoordinated and painful. Harry was flushed the way he always when they worked closely with blood magic, half-shouting and clenching at the air with empty hands, laughing wildly in the pauses between his cries.
They had defeated the Dark Lord tonight. At least temporarily. They had won Harry’s godfather a trial and confused the mighty Albus Dumbledore.
They had proven that blood magic could be used on the field of battle, and survived.
Theo thrust until he felt his eyes roll back in his head and an embarrassing stream of heat pulled from him. He never came this fast when he was with Harry, not most of the time. But this evening was hardly a usual time for the two of them.
He slumped down next to Harry and saw that Harry’s erection was still glistening and hard. He reached out, aware of Harry’s breathless anticipation and wide eyes, and flicked a finger against the tip.
Harry shuddered and came, giving a low moan of pain and pleasure mingled at the end. Then he rolled towards Theo and yawned.
“The Cushioning Charm will give out soon,” Theo whispered. His voice was already thick with oncoming sleep, but he knew he should do something about that. “We don’t want to sleep on a stone floor.”
“Why not?”
“We’ll wake up with aches and pains tomorrow.”
“So we take a potion.”
Harry’s eyes were fluttering determinedly shut, and Theo found that he couldn’t refuse. He didn’t want to be parted from Harry tonight. He didn’t even want to withdraw from Harry tonight. He curled tighter and tighter, closer and closer, and Harry leaned his head on Theo’s chest, and Theo gathered him close, and they went to sleep like that.
*
“We’re very worried about you.”
Remus tried to keep his voice kind as he sat down across from Harry in the library in Grimmauld Place. Harry glanced up from a book he was reading, smiling but looking a little impatient.
Remus tried to get a good look at the cover of the book, but it had been obscured. He held in a sigh. He was almost sure that was a book on blood magic, and he wanted to tell Harry to stop reading it, but he already knew what would happen. Harry would protest with faux innocence that it wasn’t any such thing, and offer to show it to Remus, who would have to admit that the words shifting and slithering across the page were innocuous.
Remus knew that because it had already happened three times this summer.
“Why are you worried about me, Remus?”
Something relaxed in Remus’s belly. So far, Harry had avoided every discussion that Sirius had tried to have with him with a joke. Sirius had asked Remus to talk to Harry that morning in pure desperation.
Padfoot wants to do it, but he doesn’t think he knows this version of Harry well enough.
“Because you’re—you’re walking a dangerous path,” Remus said. “Blood magic isn’t the darkest Art, but it’s Dark enough. You could lose control of it. You could kill someone without meaning to.”
“I’m a Phoenix. Mastering blood magic is what I was meant to do.”
Remus clenched his teeth. That term, Phoenix, was one Harry had spoken before. Remus and Sirius had done their best to find it in books in Grimmauld Place’s library, but it was hard since the books they found only mentioned the bird. There were others, Darker tomes, that might have told them, but Sirius flatly refused to touch them, and Remus didn’t want to, either. He struggled with corruption enough as it was, given his werewolf curse.
But Harry was smiling at him in the way that said he wouldn’t explain anything. It was the way he had smiled when Albus had told him that he would have to return to his Muggle relatives’ for the summer.
“If you try to make me do that,” he’d said, “I’ll just go and stay with Theo’s father.”
Albus had tried to argue all the advantages of having Harry in the Muggle world, in vain. Harry said that he wanted to stay in the magical world instead of going into the Muggle world for a bit of a holiday, that he wanted to see Sirius’s trial, and that the blood protections around the house were a lot more useless than Albus had ever told him.
Albus had then said something about Harry’s family loving him. Harry had laughed, and Nott’s eyes had glittered coldly. They’d been standing next to each other, as they always were, in Albus’s office.
‘They don’t love me.”
“But the protections—”
“Haven’t held at all,” said Nott, and tilted his head to look at Albus. “I went and looked at them. Did you consult with a single blood mage before you tried to put them on the house? They could have told you that that kind of thing wouldn’t work on a Muggle dwelling.”
“Protections woven of blood and love—”
“There was no love. And you can’t combine an emotion with magic in the way that you think you did.”
In the end, Albus had had to back down, although of course he did it with ill grace. Remus found it hard to blame him. The boys had been infuriating.
But with the threat of losing them to Nott Manor in place, Albus had backed down, and now Nott meandered into the library and sat down next to Harry, giving Remus an indifferent look. Remus glanced away. In one respect, he would have been comforted if Nott had hated him because he was a werewolf. That would have indicated that Nott was paying attention to someone besides Harry.
Harry looked up at Nott, though, and his eyes shone with a spark that no one else had been able to draw to the surface. When Ron and Hermione had tried, inviting Harry to play Quidditch or chess or study with them alone, Harry had just smiled and shaken his head and walked away.
There was a part of him that only Nott would ever see or touch.
Remus sighed. He had been trying to avoid that realization, but it had just been waiting for him to have it. And now he would have to go tell Sirius and Albus that he had tried his best, but there was nothing he could do.
And perhaps it was for the best, in some ways. He stood up and walked to the library door, and looked back over his shoulder.
Harry and Nott were curled up against each other on the couch, heads resting on each other’s shoulders. It was more than obvious that they hadn’t noticed him go.
Remus closed his eyes. They were too young for it, Sirius had said. They were too dangerous for it, Albus had said.
But seeing them like this, Remus wouldn’t have the heart to try to take Nott from Harry, or vice versa. Unhealthy or not, dangerous or not, they were part of each other.
Everyone would just have to accept that.
The End.
